1950s Canada
AA-2026-2EEC9E
On the image
Somewhere in the Canadian Rockies in the 1950s, a tourist stopped on a hillside trail and decided the Banff Springs Hotel needed to be framed through spruce branches, as though the building required softening. It did not. Canadian Pacific Railway had already done the softening in 1888 by commissioning a château-style resort so extravagant it made European guests feel they hadn't left home, on the theory that wilderness was more palatable when served alongside a bellman.
By the 1950s the Banff Springs was the kind of institution Canadians were quietly proud of without ever quite explaining why a Victorian railway company had built a Scottish baronial castle inside a national park. It sat in the Bow Valley below Sulphur Mountain with the confidence of something that fully expected to outlast whoever was looking at it, and it was right.
The Canadian flag visible on the roofline dates this to after 1965 — or what flies there is a precursor pennant — but the summer crowd that climbed this ridge had driven up the Trans-Canada Highway in cars with enormous fins, stayed one respectful night, and taken this exact shot, each one convinced they had found the definitive angle.
Visually related — by likeness
Banff Springs Hotel from Bow Valley Viewpoint, Alberta, 1950s. 1950–1969. Archive & Atlas, Historical Image Library, AA-2026-2EEC9E. https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/banff-springs-hotel-from-bow-valley-viewpoint-alberta-1950s.
@misc{aaAA20262EEC9E,
title = {Banff Springs Hotel from Bow Valley Viewpoint, Alberta, 1950s},
year = {1950–1969},
howpublished = {Archive \& Atlas, Historical Image Library},
note = {Accession AA-2026-2EEC9E},
url = {https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/banff-springs-hotel-from-bow-valley-viewpoint-alberta-1950s}
}TY - ART TI - Banff Springs Hotel from Bow Valley Viewpoint, Alberta, 1950s PY - 1950–1969 PB - Archive & Atlas, Historical Image Library AN - AA-2026-2EEC9E UR - https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/banff-springs-hotel-from-bow-valley-viewpoint-alberta-1950s ER -
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